MAP35: Midnight Tek Frenzy (Community Chest 4)

MAP35: Midnight Tek Frenzy is an Easter egg map of Community Chest 4. It was designed by Brian Knox (Snakes) and uses "Where Iz It?", a music track from Rise of the Triad composed by Lee Jackson. It cannot be reached in normal gameplay; it must be accessed through a command line argument, a cheat code, or a console command depending on source port used to run the WAD. Completing this level will end the game if the port has no MAPINFO support; if it does, the player will be taken to MAP01: Renewed Faith.

The level was released standalone after it failed to make it into the main megawad, but was included as an Easter egg out of sympathy from the project leader (see Inspiration and development).

Essentials
This bonus level makes clear with its open layout and fast-paced soundtrack that it is a slaughter map. While ammo and health are not lacking at any point, neither are the monsters. All six keys need to be acquired to exit, and the level allows them to be collected in a variety of orders. Thus, the walkthrough below is but a suggested route.

Start and Red Skull Key

You begin in the southern section of the level, facing a central building. (On co-op, player 3 and 4 start in the northeast section of the central building). Immediately, you are set upon by four demons, six imps on either side, and two shotgun guys on top of metal pillars. Rush forward and grab the shotgun, super shotgun and box of shotgun shells next to these pillars. Take out the enemies (use the barrels to dispose of the imps on the walls) and flip the switch on the western pillar to lower a wall to the west. This allows you access to the southwest section of the level, where the red skull key is.

Kill the chaingunner dead ahead as the wall lowers. As you enter, you will be set upon by another big horde of monsters. Use the barrel in the northeast to take out the horde of zombiemen on the ledge in the northeast. You then need to dodge fire from the revenants, arachnotrons and mancubus to grab the rocket launcher in the north, which will allow you to start cleaning house. Try to do this before cacodemons and pain elementals trickle in from the north. All this while, you must be aware that the wall east of the starting point has lowered too, and enemies may trickle in from there. Once the enemies are cleared out, flip the switch in the north to temporarily lower the southern pillar, revealing a switch inside. Flip this to permanently lower the northern pillar with the red skull key, but watch for the arch-vile that will teleport onto the ledge in the southwest. Use the soulsphere to heal up if the arch-vile successfully hit you.

Resource Detour and Blue Keycard

Head back to the south side of the level (where you started), then enter the main building. Walk forward to generate stairs. Three mancubi await in a caged area dead ahead, and some imps, demons and shotgun guys will also approach. Your priority, however, are the three chaingunners east of the entrance to this building. Clear all the enemies out, then grab the megaarmor opposite the entrance and the plasma gun where the shotgun guys were.

Head back out of the building, then go east to the southeast section of the level. You need to watch for demons and imps in the north and northwest (use the barrels to kill the ones on the walkway), shotgun guys on a ledge in the west, revenants on a ledge in the southwest and three Hell knights on the ground. Some cacodemons may attack from the north too. Your goal is to flip three switches in this area: one in the south, one in the east and one in the northwest.

Once you flip all three switches, two large chambers with a grand total of 88 imps (and four demons) will open. These imps will teleport to various points in the area. If they are distant enough, use rockets; if they are too close, use plasma. Once they are dead, head into the eastern chamber and flip the switch in the back. This opens walls in the southeast, revealing three mancubi and an arch-vile, as well as the blue keycard. The arch-vile is going to resurrect the imps and use them as its meatshield - stop it doing that with rockets. The barrels near the southwest will help here. Grab the blue keycard in the southwest once you are done.

Red Keycard

Head into the central building again, and head west. You will see a ladder leading up into the narrow caged area where the mancubi were. Head up it and follow the path to its end, collecting a berserk pack along the way. This leads to a ledge with the red keycard at its end. However, once you cross the halfway mark of the ledge, the floor sinks with you on it, forming a narrow pit. Imps and demons will begin teleporting in from both sides - use plasma and spin around to keep monsters from both sides at bay. After a short while, the ledge will rise up again, allowing you to reach the red keycard. Once that happens, you might wish to jump off the ledge to the south (back into the southeast area) for more breathing room first before collecting the keycard.

Yellow Skull Key

From the red keycard ledge, jump to the south, then backtrack into the central building. While you were collecting the red keycard, a teleport trap activated, populating the central building with a sizable horde - six zombiemen, six shotgun guys, three chaingunners, 15 imps and five Hell knights. This is all alongside any stragglers in the central building. You should dispose of them first (and use the resources in the north of the central building to heal up).

Next, head to the northeast of the central building and jump out a window to end up in the northeast section of the map. You will need to watch for shotgun guys and imps on the outer wall, arachnotrons in the west, as well as imps and spectres on the ground. There are two pillars that automatically rise and lower. Flip the switches hidden in them when the pillar is lowered to completely lower the pillar with the yellow skull key. However, once the pillar with the yellow skull key lowers, two arch-viles will teleport in. Use the shape of the central building as cover and burst them down once they peek out.

Blue Skull Key

Head to the west of the yellow skull key area and find the ladder on to the ledge where the arachnotrons were. Cross the ledge and drop down into the northwest of the map. Here, you will have to deal with three mancubi, shotgun guys on a ledge and scattered revenants and imps. You need to flip the two switches on either end of this area to fully lower the pillar with the blue skull key on it. When you flip the first switch, the ledge where some revenants and imps were lowers, revealing another set of revenants and imps. When you flip the second switch, a large teleport trap opens, filling the area with six chaingunners, seven demons and five revenants. The metal squares on the ground will also rise up, and a mancubus will teleport onto each one. This is where the BFG9000 you find in this area will come in handy. Of course, monster infighting will help save ammo too.

Yellow Keycard

Head to the east of the blue skull key area and climb the ladder up to the ledge. Approach the yellow keycard. About halfway there, a trap activates, causing a cyberdemon to rise out of the floor. Jump off the ledge to either side, perform micro-dodging against the cyberdemon's rockets and return fire with your own rockets (or a BFG9000 shot if you're daring enough to close the distance). Once the cyberdemon is dead, collect the key it was protecting.

Exit

Follow the yellow keycard ledge back into the main building and head to the west side. Flip the switch in the west to raise the bars and lower the switch panel, allowing access to the final area of the map with three doors ahead. The following sequence of events will happen, and it is important to take them all into consideration when planning your strategy for this area:


 * 16 imps appear from a fake floor trap.
 * A first cyberdemon is released from the left door.
 * A second cyberdemon is released from the right door.
 * Four arch-viles are released from the center door.
 * The walls to the left and right lower, allowing more breathing room.

While this looks impossible, do not panic. Again, infighting will save the day:


 * Let the first cyberdemon take care of the imps.
 * Dodge around both cyberdemons.
 * When the arch-viles are released, try to get the cyberdemons to hit them with their rockets. This will instantly spark infighting, and even kill them for you.
 * Get out when the walls lower and finish off the cyberdemons.

Once all monsters have been felled, head back to the western area of the map. Flip the switches in this sequence - center, right, left. The bars to the exit teleporter in the center alcove will be open. Step into it to end the level.

Secrets

 * 1) In the courtyard with the red skull key, flip the switch that lowers the pillar encasing the switch that lowers the key. Stay on the pillar when it rises up, and jump southward towards the rocks. Head for the rocks that have imps on them, and maneuver onto the ledge northwest of the imps' ledge to get some boxes of rockets and energy cell packs. (sector 536)
 * 2) Inside the central building, there's a vent in the southeast corner. Near the plasma gun, hop onto the ledge with the tech column, then sidle around through the vent to obtain a berserk pack and a megaarmor. (sector 578)

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on February 13, 2023.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
Compared to the standalone release, this level contains fixes for several bugs that were originally present. This included a big slime trail in the center of the level, a lowering sector erroneously split in two, and Hall of Mirrors effects inside certain pillars. It also fixes lighting inconsistencies throughout the level.

The map slots MAP33, MAP34, and MAP35 are playable in PrBoom+ through the command line; the background music used for these maps is the text screen music, the title screen music, and the intermission screen music, respectively. In this port, the music on this level begins with the first few snare hits of the intermission screen music, "The Destiny of Death," before segueing into "Where Iz It?"; this is accomplished using the port's support for MUSINFO, with a "music changer" thing placed in the sector where the player begins the level.

The sky texture for MAP12-20 appears on this level via a linedef action that causes a different sky texture to be shown than normal, even though this is technically not a feature of Boom but of MBF. However, PrBoom+ supports this action when using Boom compatibility levels or higher, because it has been mistaken for a Boom feature for years; this is possibly because of Doom Builder including it in its Boom configuration.

Inspiration and development
The level was designed for inclusion into the main megawad. However, it was not completed on time for the November 16, 2011 deadline imposed for level submissions. Knox eventually finished and published the level on March 22, 2012, as a standalone WAD on the idgames/ archive. When Eric Baker (The Green Herring), the project leader, played the WAD, he felt bad for the author because it would have passed the project's quality check had it been completed and submitted on time; unlike several levels cut from the map roster, it missed inclusion in the project only because it was not finished by the deadline. Consequently, Baker got permission from Knox to include the level in the megawad as an easter egg, with bugfixes performed by them both. To aid in keeping its inclusion secret, this level did not appear in any of the public beta releases.

After the final release of the WAD, the easter egg level was first discovered by Keeper of Jericho, who made a post in the megawad's release thread at Doomworld on August 31, 2012 asking who the author was, despite this information appearing if the player beats the level.

Trivia
The part of the wad directory in which this level is hidden is marked with a lump named "_FNORD". The word "" is associated with satire of conspiracy theories and was popularized by  of novels as a word that children are taught by the to be unable to consciously see.